Washington asked a judge to apply the previous restraining order to Trump's new travel ban

Washington State is asking a federal judge to apply the temporary restraining order that halted President Trump's initial travel ban to the new executive order he issued on Monday, NPR reported.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose motion brought Trump's initial ban to federal court, said that Judge James Robart's Feb. 3 ruling should be applied to cover the revised ban.

"The bottom line is that the court issued, and we obtained, a temporary restraining order on the original executive order," Ferguson told NPR's Robert Siegel ahead of the announcement. "Yes, the revised one is more narrow -- that's a success. But the core constitutional problems remain the same."

"The intent behind the executive order targeting those Muslim countries still remains," he added, "and that is unconstitutional."

Trump's revised order removed Iraq from the list of banned countries, and clarified that those who already have visas are permitted to come to the U.S.

The ban is expected to be implemented on March 16.

Ferguson said the new order's narrower scope is not enough.

"Just because it's a smaller number of individuals who are impacted, that doesn't mean you can solve a constitutional problem of the magnitude that the revised ban still has," he said.

Earlier this week, Hawaii became the first state to challenge President Trump's revised ban, but Washington's request to apply the previous judicial ruling to the new executive order is separate.

In a news conference, Ferguson added that states like New York and Oregon are joining the effort to challenge Trump's travel ban.